Perception Drivers Blog

In the 1990s, the Wall Street Journal ran a campaign for itself selling the benefits of—what else?—advertising
in the Journal. (Let’s recall the pre-internet days, when the four broadcast networks,
print outlets such as the Journal and the New York Times, and newsweeklies Time and Newsweek were the ad domains of blue-chip brands.) In that Journal campaign, “I Wish I had Done That Ad,” agency creative directors gushed with admiration—and a hint of envy—about
others’ impactful ads they’d wished they had done, ending with a plug for why they make media buys in the Journal.

There is an axiom in the public-relations profession that products and issues—political and nonprofit causes or social-impact initiatives, specifically—do
not truly “arrive” until they have a celebrity name attached to them.

Everyone knew the news was coming—albeit
not precisely when. Yet, the “digital wildfire” that accompanied Caitlyn Jenner’s public debut on June 1 via tweet of her upcoming Vanity Fair cover story and pictorial
took even the most Internet savvy by surprise.

One of our staff members is a docent at the Skirball Museum and Cultural Center in Los Angeles, which hosted the exhibition “Houdini: Art and Magic” As a result of
her participation, we learned that Harry Houdini was an early, and very effective, practitioner of marketing. He was so successful, in fact,
that he remains an American icon – as famed as Babe Ruth or Charles Lindbergh-- 85 years after his death on Halloween, 1926.